"Your Daily Tripod" reflects the personal Fourth Day journeys of its authors and editors. We are happy to have companions like you share in this project. Our prayer is that these reflections will invite and inspire your Fourth Day journey of Piety, Study and Action as much as writing or editing them inspires our journey and brings us all close moments with Jesus and our neighbors.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Cleanse Our Consciences

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of
a heifer’s ashes can sanctify those who are defiled so that their
flesh is cleansed, how much more will the Blood of Christ, who
through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our
consciences from dead works to worship the living God. Hebrews 9:13-14

Jesus came with his disciples into the house. Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible
for them even to eat. When his relatives
heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, “He is out of his
mind.” Mark 3:20-21

Piety

Be at Peace

Do not look forward in fear
to the changes of life; rather look to them with full hope as they arise. God, whose very own you are, will deliver you
from out of them. He has kept you
hitherto, and He will lead you safely through all things; and when you cannot
stand it, God will bury you in his arms.

Do not fear what may happen
tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of
you then and everyday. He will either
shield you from suffering, or will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, and put aside all anxious
thoughts and imagination.

St. Francis de Sales
1567-1622

Study

Possessed.

Until the book and movie
“The Exorcist” became wildly popular back in the 1970s, I had no idea what “possession”
really meant in a religious sense. Every
moviegoer today is so used to demonic possession movies that it doesn't faze
them anymore. “Possession” movies (it seems) come out to the theater, TV or
Netflix every week – although lately they have been eclipsed by zombie movies
and vampire diaries (but these could just be sub-classifications of the
possession genre).

However, back when “The
Exorcist” came out as a book in 1971 and then as a movie, it was a true scare
all the way down the Georgetown steps. I am told that people fainted in the theater
watching this movie…I am told because my parents would not let me go to see
it. Now, you can watch The Exorcist on
YouTube.

We have become numbed by
over-exposure to this genre.We all have
the "we've-seen-one-we've-seen-them-all" syndrome.But the real thing – being possessed by God
was so new and different that Jesus’ family could not tell the difference
between being normal and paranormal.In
ancient cultures, the unexplainable was usually explained by fear.Anyone like Jesus who attracted such crowds
of strangers waiting for the next miracle, the next great sermon, the next
healing could not be normal.

Jesus, however, used his
spotlight to the benefit of others who were “possessed.” He cured people with physical and mental
health issues that were beyond the scope of doctors from his days. He was so right in using his position for the
good of others that were shunned by the village. He was so right that people thought he was
wrong.

Action

We might not be “possessed”
in a Linda Blair head-spinning, bed-off-the-floor moment but we might not
always be of the right mind and right relationship with the things around
us.

Are your possessed by “self-will” and a desire for things other than God?It
helps to consider how St. Francis de Sales viewed our relationship to God and
free will. The less self-willed we are,
the easier it will be to us to follow God’s will, he said.

…Whosoever is not entirely resigned, but keeps on
turning this way and that, never will find peace. When a person has a fever, he
finds no place comfortable; he has not remained in one bed a quarter of an
hour, before he wishes to be in another. It is not the bed which is in fault,
but the fever, which torments him everywhere. And so a person who has not the
fever of self-will, is contented everywhere and in all things, provided God be
glorified.